Every copy of Thesis comes with the Classic Responsive Skin, which has been meticulously optimized for performance, search engines, mobile devices, and people just like you.

That’s right—after installing Thesis, you’ll have a responsive website that works seamlessly on mobile devices everywhere. And we’re just getting started…Read on!

Total WordPress template control (no code required!)

There’s a dirty little secret other theme companies don’t want you to know:

With the traditional WordPress theme and child theme architecture, the only way to edit templates is to get your hands messy with code.

Any template WordPress can understand can be created and customized using [Thesis’] new streamilined drag and drop interface…This is all possible without writing a single line of PHP or HTML.

Rick Anderson

And if you want to add a custom template? Forget it—you better be very comfortable with WordPress, an FTP client, a text editor, and of course, code.

If that strikes you as overkill or if you find that intimidating, you’re not alone.

Basically, if you want to add or change anything outside of the default state of other WordPress themes or child themes, you’re going to need to code…or else hire someone to code for you.

But it doesn’t have to be like this! Here’s the deal:

The traditional WordPress theme and child theme architecture is both limited and outdated. In order to have total template control without messing with code, you need a new architecture.

Thesis 2 is that architecture.

Thesis blasts through the limitations of the old WordPress template system and brings you total template control with our patent-pending visual template editor.

The Thesis Skin Editor gives you visual, point-and-click control over your templates.

This means that no matter which Skin you use, you can control all of your templates—and everything on them—with Thesis’ visual template editor.

Thesis 2.1 is fun! The idea of placing elements wherever I want in templates is too easy.

Reese

You don’t have to hire a developer, and better—you don’t have to wait another minute to make that change to your website. With Thesis, you can pop open the template editor and BOOM—you can make it happen right now.

(And hey, if you’re a hardcore developer like me and still want to add your own code, you can do that, too. In fact, with the Thesis API, you can do just about anything.)

And if you change your font or font size, Thesis will adjust your entire layout to ensure maximum readability and comfort for your site’s visitors. (You read that right—Thesis is now tuning typography for individual FONTS! No other software on the planet can do this.)

The bottom line? Thesis 2 is like your own personal designer—an innovative new system that helps turn your customization dreams into a pixel-perfect reality.

Custom templates tailored to your WordPress installation

With other themes, “custom” is marketing speak for “you’re gonna need code for this.”

Thesis, however, respects the meaning of the word “custom” and thoughtfully scans your WordPress installation to incorporate anything you might have added to it.

Thesis automatically creates templates based on your WordPress settings. You can also create custom templates on the fly…without code!

If Thesis detects custom post types or custom taxonomies, it will create special templates for each of these items in your Skin (and it doesn’t matter which Skin you’re using!).

No matter what kind of site you’re running on WordPress, Thesis will adapt to your environment and give you a code-free way to control it.

I love the template support for custom post types. That’s been a great help for a complex site I am working on.

Puneet Sahalot

Also, if you want to create your own custom templates on the fly, you can do it from the comfort of the visual template editor—no FTP clients, text editors, or other technical things required.

(Seriously, after using Thesis for a little while, you’ll be amazed that we ever used complicated tools like that for something so simple!)

Boxes

Boxes are like apps for your Thesis website

Let’s say you want an email signup form in your sidebar. Or maybe you want some social sharing widgets below your headline. Or maybe you want “popular posts” in your sidebar.

Before Thesis 2, the ONLY way you could get the functionality you want, where you want, was either by hiring a developer, installing yet another potentially inefficient plugin, or—heaven forbid—code it yourself.

Not anymore.

Drop new functionality into your web design—no code necessary

Now you can find a Thesis Box that has the functionality you want, and simply drag and drop it into your template in the patent-pending visual template editor…

…and YOU’RE SET.

With Thesis, you can easily add any kind of functionality to your site.

What’s even better is this: You can make Thesis Boxes show up exactly where you want—and configure them— without ever editing a file or seeing a line of code.

(It’s not that we think code is bad; we just think you’ll agree that the visual template editor offers a more efficient, better-organized way to do the stuff you need to do with your website!)

Want a Box on your category template? No problem.

Want a Box on JUST your home page? Drop it right where you want it.

Spent 48 hours with Thesis 2.1. The verdict? “It’ll speed up the development by ten folds.” You’ve nailed it, Chris.

Rajeev Edmonds

This stuff used to require ugly, conditional code. Now it’s only a couple of clicks away.

The bottom line? Thesis Boxes give you the functionality you want—completely integrated with WordPress—precisely where you want it.

Site Tools

Do you want your WordPress blog to rank higher in search engines? A silly question, I know… Who doesn’t?

In order to give your site the best opportunity to rank well, you need to focus on both performance and optimization.

Thanks to its remarkably efficient new architecture, Thesis 2 offers performance capabilities that no other theme can match. Not only does Thesis 2 serve streamlined, search engine optimized HTML5, but it also minimizes HTTP requests, regardless of the Skin you’re using!

(That’s geek-speak for “your site loads faster because it uses fewer resources.” Search engines LOVE this kind of thing.)

I look forward to building some incredible websites for local Santa Barbara business owners with Thesis 2.1.

Danielle Parsons

And with “one click easy” tools for additional optimization, Thesis 2 has everything you need to establish an authoritative website and dominate the search engines.

Let’s look at some of these tools and see how you can use them to enhance your site immediately.

Increase your search engine clickthrough rate with Google Authorship

According to Search Engine Land, a leading publication about search engine news, they’ve seen reports that adding support for Google Authorship has increased clickthrough rates of search results by 30% to 150% or MORE.

With Thesis 2, implementing Google Authorship on your site is as easy as pasting your Google+ profile link in a box.

And if you run a multi-author site? Thesis 2 smartly integrates with WordPress and allows you to supply a Google+ profile link for each of your authors. Look for this option on each author’s WordPress User Profile page.

Separate your site from the pack with Markup Schema

Markup schema is part of the new standard used by search engines to understand content on the web.

Right now, major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! are looking for this code on your site so they can improve their search results.

The implications here are serious: If your site doesn’t leverage markup schema, it’s probably going to lose rankings to another site that does.

But if you’ve got Thesis, you’re going to be the one taking those rankings.

Thanks to a lightweight HTML structure that’s enriched with markup schema, Thesis can help you give search engines precisely what they want.

And unlike other themes, Thesis’ markup schema is built for the future. The list of potential markup schema is enormous and ever-growing, so a good system must be able to account for this inevitable growth and change.

Wow!!! It’s more intuitive, stout, and simpler to use! This is genius work right here; thank you guys so so much!

Brandon Cordoba

We built Thesis 2’s markup schema system on this principle. With Thesis, Skins can not only tap into the built-in markup schema for things like articles, recipes, and reviews, but they can also add any other valid markup schema as well!

The bottom line? No matter which type of markup schema you need for your site, you can do it with Thesis.

Improve your SEO right now: Get your site verified by Google and Bing

When you’re looking to rank higher in search engines, all the best search engine optimization experts will tell you to get your site listed in both Google and Bing’s webmaster tools.

Before Thesis 2, if you wanted to verify your site, you’d have to add some custom code into your <head>…but that just gave most people a headache.

Seriously, once I started I was amazed at how easy [Thesis] was to use.

David

With Thesis 2, we give you a simple option field where you can paste your verification code without ever opening up a file or thinking about code.